Adsorption of aromatic compounds by organic adsorbent, activated carbon and synthetic resin particles is a common separation technique. Fixed bed adsorber is generally employed for this kind of separation. The organics are adsorbed on the particles present in the fixed bed and spent adsorbent particles are recovered subsequently by regeneration media-solvent or hot steam and so on. Organic adsorbents, including activated carbon, possess high affinity with aromatic compounds so that desorption process faces a difficult task. Pseudo-moving bed technique cannot be applied in such a system. High concentration of organic solution is generally separated by the bed. Conversely, inorganic adsorbents have a weak adsorptive affinity towards aromatic compounds. Silica gel (SG) and high-silica zeolite (HSZ) particles were, therefore, employed as adsorbents in this study, and benzothiophene and naphthalene dissolved in isooctane were used as adsorbates. A series of adsorption and desorption experiments was performed in either a single or a binary component system. Both the adsorption and desorption isotherms were superimposed on each other, indicating that the organic compounds were adsorbed reversibly on the inorganic particles. It was also found that the amount of benzothiophene was adsorbed with same quantity whether the experiments were performed in a single or binary system, and the similar results were found for naphthalene. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.